5 Ways To Remove Oil Stains From A Driveway

If your driveway has oil and grease stains, we have a few tips to get rid of them fast. From your car leaking oil to bicycle chain grease, oil soaks in and leaves a big messy stain. Big oil and grease stains in the driveway or garage can get tracked into your home and ruin your carpet.

Our 5 tips to removing these ugly stains have been tested and tried and work well. The items we have listed are common household products you probably already have in your home. Try these 5 different “greener” ways before you buy expensive and harmful chemicals. These tips and methods below act as one of the best driveway cleaners around… naturally.

Dawn Dish Detergent: Squirt a large amount of Dawn soap onto the oil stain. Use a large bristle brush to scrub the stain until you start to see the oil pulling out of the asphalt. Rinse off with a hose and repeat this until the stain is gone.

Powder Laundry Detergent: Sprinkle the detergent on top of the oil stain and cover stain completely. Get the powder a little bit wet so it will mix. Use a hard brush to scrub the detergent into the stain. Once the oil and detergent have mixed, let sit for 1 hour so the detergent has time to penetrate. After one hour spray off and repeat if necessary.

Baking Soda: Dump a giant amount of baking soda on the grease stain. Get the mixture slightly wet. Begin scrubbing into the stain using a brush and using a circular motion. Continue scrubbing until the oil stain begins to come up. Hose off with water and repeat if stain is still visible.

WD-40: Spray this water displacement spray onto the large grease stain. Let sit for 30 minutes to sink into asphalt. You may not need to scrub this as the WD-40 should be able to pull the stain out. If needed scrub the stain using hard brush. Hose the stain down after 30 minutes and repeat if stain is still present.

Cola (Soda Pop): Use the cola method AFTER the top stain has been removed using one of the methods above. If the majority of the oil or grease has been removed, the soda method will be able to remove the stain after the majority of the oil is gone. Pour one 12 ounce can of cola (any brand) onto the dry oil stain. Let sit for up to 6 hours so it will penetrate down into the asphalt. Once time has passed, you can pour one more can of cola on the stain and use a brush to scrub the area. Let sit another hour. After time has passed, spray down with a water hose. Repeat this if needed to fully remove the stain. This works by the cola soaking deeply into the asphalt and “eating away” at the stain.

If you have oil and grease stain that can’t be removed using the methods above, you may need to use an industrial strength cleaner/degreaser. A good one to use that is not harmful and gets the job done is made by Simple Green. It is called Simple Green® Concrete & Driveway Cleaner and is a solution to the more natural methods above.

Do you have an easier more efficient way of removing grease or oil stains from a driveway or garage? Please leave a comment below!

Since motor oil has a mild detergent in it and with the fact that clean oil in general lifts and cleans dirty oil. Putting oil based facial cleanser on an oily skin cleans the dirty oil on the face. I use a can of clean motor oil to clean the dirty oil spots off cement. Let the new oil soak for several hours then scrub with stiff brush, then I wipe the oil up with cotton towels to absorb the loosened dirty oil. Repeat as needed. I’m in my sixties and was taught this by my dad since I was a young man (12 years old). When working our cars we would get the grease off our hands with clean motor oil.

A friend who is a hotel manager taught me a trick that may not work in dry climates but here in Houston it does. Just take a small amount of cement mix and spread a thin layer of the mix with a push broom at the evening or night time and leave it the dampness from the night will moisten it enough to harden and in the morning you will have a brand new area of cement it will be brighter than the rest but will eventually blend in. Hope this helps!

Our driveway has had our old car parked on it for a long time. Now that he has sold that car, we are left with a bunch grease stains. Thanks for the advice on what to use to remove the spots. Will theses methods also work for asphalt driveways?

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